Dealing with death in a school community (Julie Mack column)

Recently in the span of a few days, my
19-year-old daughter at Michigan State University was grappling with
the news of two untimely deaths — one, an acquaintance, and the other,
the close friend of an acquaintance. Both deaths appeared to be
suicides.

It was two separate cases, two very different circumstances. The suicide aspect was not mentioned by those closest to them,
but it was all over Facebook and Twitter, and staff, student and alumni at two schools were reeling.

Any death in a school community is tragic, but
the emotions around a suicide are especially complicated — a knot of
bewilderment, guilt, shame and raw pain.

"The circles of trauma move outward through the community," said William Pell, executive director of Gryphon Place, which
coordinates suicide prevention efforts in Kalamazoo County. "Suicide generates a different response than losing someone to
cancer or a car accident. ...With a suicide, you may never know why the person did it. It's hard to understand."

Pell said that when school officials hear about a death that may be a suicide, the first step is to confirm the cause of death
with authorities.

"What people are saying on Facebook may be
absolutely right," but school officials need to check with the county
medical examiner or other authority to confirm, Pell said.

The next step is for schools to arrange for "debriefing sessions" that are part grief counseling and part educational.

But school officials also need to tread lightly, he acknowledged.

"If you've got a family that says it wasn't suicide, and school officials tell people it is, that can cause a firestorm,"
he said.

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Equally difficult, he said, is if the family acknowledges the suicide, but asks school officials not to mention it.

Yet the reality is that death by suicide is difficult to keep secret, especially in today's world of social networking.

"It's a difficult bind for administrators if you've got a whole school full of kids and faculty who are talking about it,
and yet you feel an obligation to honor the family's wishes," he said.

Still, Pell said, in such a situation, "I would lean towards having forthright conversations and debriefings" in the school
setting.

He pointed to the guidelines put out by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, which has a 49-page book for schools
dealing with the aftermath of a suicide.

That book, "After Suicide," suggests when a
family does not want the cause of death disclosed, a school official
should explain to them that students are already talking about the
death and that having more formal conversations with adults about
suicide "can help keep students safe."

If the family still resists, the book says, the
school can honor their wishes but address the issue by telling students
that the cause of death is not being disclosed, but "we know there has
been a lot of talk about whether this was a suicide death. Since the
subject of suicide has been raised, we want to take this opportunity"
to talk about suicide and suicide prevention.

Among other points offered by experts:

• If a school has a ritual for mourning a
death, they should use that same ritual for suicides. Treating suicide
differently "reinforces the unfortunate stigma that still surrounds
suicide and may be deeply and unfairly painful to the deceased
student's family and close friends," "After Suicide" says.

• Schools should emphasize that a person who dies by suicide was likely struggling with a mental disorder, such as depression
or anxiety, that may not have been apparent to others. Conversations should also avoid simple cause-and-effect — assuming,
for instance, that someone killed himself because of a bad grade or the breakup of a relationship.

• Students should be reminded that suicide is preventable, and be made aware of resources available for those struggling with
suicidal feelings.

Among the dangers in a school community, "After
Suicide" said, is "suicide contagion" — i.e., the possibility that one
person's suicide will make the idea more palatable to someone else.

For that reason, the book says, "it is important not to inadvertently simplify, glamorize, or romanticize the student or
his/her death."

"There is evidence that when a kid kills him or herself, there is a copycat risk — that it can lead to the thinking that this
isn't such a bad thing after all," Pell said. "Suicide remains taboo, which is a good thing. But when someone close to you
does it, it doesn't seem like such a taboo."

But even beyond the risk of a copycat death,
coming to grips with a suicide can be deeply unsettling experience,
Pell said. Even mere acquaintances of the victim can be traumatized, he
said, and it helps for people to talk it out and know they are not
alone.